Warner Archive Is Releasing A Swine Collection Of Classic Cartoons

Warner Archive is releasing every single black-and-white Porky Pig cartoon ever made in a five-disc dvd set.

Anyone who is familiar with collecting dvds of classic cartoons will immediately recognize the uniqueness of this release. Warner Bros. has never released a comprehensive collection of the work produced by its legendary animation division. Certainly, many of the Porky shorts on this collection have never been released on any home video format.

The collection will include 101 theatrical shorts (99 black-&-white Porkys and two Technicolor Porkys), spanning chronologically from the stuttering pig’s debut appearance in Friz Freleng’s I Haven’t Got a Hat in 1935 through Frank Tashlin’s Porky Pig’s Feat in 1943. A number of the shorts will be accompanied by audio commentaries from animation historians including Greg Ford, Jerry Beck, Michael Barrier, and Mark Kausler.

Nearly every Warner directing great had a hand in the development of the character: besides Freleng and Tashlin, the work of other directors like Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones is also represented on this set. To watch these shorts chronologically is to understand the framework of American cartoon animation — a tradition that even to this day draws heavily upon the visual innovations of these visionary artists.